Global Impact of e-Commerce

It should be noted that this was made for an assignment, Dragon Driving School is a fictional company. If readers like this post I can always make more regarding IT in the future.

Introduction

E-Commerce is the buying and selling of goods online. In recent years this has become very popular with companies some of which just operate online. This post will be discussing some of the issues that affect e-commerce like security issues, creating new distribution channels, legislation and more. Personally I think that e-commerce is a benefit to businesses as it increases the range of customers they can reach but it is not without its disadvantages.

Empowered customer’s e.g

E-commerce allows customers to do a number of tasks that they wouldn't be available otherwise. For instance e-Commerce gives customers a greater level of choice than they would have if they shopped in person. Online they can sit in one place and search the products that a shop has on offer and not just one shop but any that have an online presence. This empowers customers as they can easily find the products that they need at the best prices.

Customers are also able to do something else they couldn't do in person, read reviews. These allow customers to get a better idea of how the product works and what problems people have experienced with it.

Online sales

E-Commerce brings into creation the area of online sales. Before a business would have to only consider the sales that they were making in a shop but this changes with the addition of e-Commerce. Instead businesses have to consider any sales they have made in a shop and online as well. This gives the managers a better idea as to how well a product is doing and whether or not the product is popular.

Lower prices

E-Commerce offers customers lower prices on the products that they are buying. This is because the company that is selling those products do not have to pay for as many expenses as they would if they owned a shop. If they owned a shop they would have to pay for the utilities, staff and so on. By selling products they do not have to pay for utilities or the other added expenses that come with owning a shop. They do have to pay for staff still as there has to be staff members present to process the order and in most cases they don’t pay for post and packaging either. A building would have to be purchased or rented for the business to operate from but this doesn’t have to be a very large place. 

This means that the post and packaging has to be paid by the customer but this is usually not very much. Overall the customer would still be paying less than they would be buying the product from a store.

Availability of new products;

An online store is able to show more products and information than there would be in a normal store. For instance an online store could say whether an item is in stock or not along with where it can be found if it isn't sold online. One thing that it can show is the availability of new products that are being sold. This can be a big advantage for customers when a popular product has been released chances are it would be sold out very quickly. The online store however would be able to inform customers what shops they can still get the product from or when they would have the product in stock again.

Global markets

E-Commerce while useful for a business does open up the possibility of greater competition to contend with. Before a business would have to contend with shops in its local area which wasn't a big task when compared to the level of e-Commerce. Once a business starts to operate online they have to contend with other businesses on a larger scale than before. In some cases a business would not only contend on a national scale but an international scale.

Dragon Driving School would not have this problem as far as global and national markets go but they would contend in a local market. If they ever increased their size as a business then they might have to contend on a national scale with other big driving schools which leads me onto new marketing models.

New marketing models

Marketing is carried out by a business to attract customers and other potential clients by making them aware of the businesses existence. This is carried out by every business in a number of ways like television, newspapers, and magazines with the list being almost endless. Marketing changed however with the creation of the World Wide Web as this created a new field of marketing for businesses. At first this wasn't the case as access to the web was quite restricted and only a small number of people went on the web. In the early to mid-nineties however access to the web increased on a global scale meaning that businesses of any size could operate on a level that they couldn't before.

As technology has increased the way in which a business can market itself has as well. A few years ago they could make banners or popups on websites which are still used today but only help to annoy the user of the computer.

Dragon Driving School can have many available routes of marketing that they can take. Creating their own website is the obvious one but they can always go a step further by creating an application for mobile devices. This application would contain all the information that the website would have and maybe the features as well like booking lessons. The advantage of doing this is that users are able to access on the go; they would not have to be stationery like they would be at a computer in their house.

On-line advertising

Online advertising can be a useful tool for a business as there are many avenues to explore but many rules to follow. Social networking has been and still is growing in popularity with millions of people online at any time a business could make itself known on a wide scale. Take Facebook for example, a business could just make a page about their business and fill it full of relevant information. This page could then be used whenever needed to add updates like offers, deals, new products and services etc.

Advertising can also come in the form of banners on web pages. This form of online advertising has one important rule which has to be followed which is that the website chose for advertising has to be of relevance. If the advert was for a games manufacturer then they would use a website related to games for their advertising. 

There are setbacks for this sort of adverting however like the advertising not attracting any possible customers. With online advertising it all depends on who visits the website and whether they are interested in your banner. As there is no guarantee that anyone will click on the banner there is never a certainty that it will work not to mention the price for advertising.

Conclusion

E-commerce does bring many advantages with its use that customers and businesses do not have with regular shopping. A few of these advantages are that customers are able to give their opinions in the form of ratings and reviews and they can search a number of products from their homes. It isn't without its risks like the added security concerns or the concern that people can leave the house less because they can do all their shopping online. These are minor issues however that can be overcome and are far outweighed by the benefits.

E-commerce is not perfect as it is now and it may never be but it does help improve life for a number of people.